Southern New Mexico Honor Flight vets feted during annual reunion

Melvin Barlow of Las Cruces becomes emotional while viewing the Honor Flight Five film at the Honor Flight of Southern New Mexico annual reunion Thursday at Cineport 10 in the Mesilla Valley Mall. Barlow was featured in the film.

LAS CRUCES —Down the hall from a theater showing the movie "Lincoln" on Thursday afternoon, Dan McBride sat in a chair, talking about another historic period in America's past. His stories came from first-hand experience, not through prism of Hollywood.

McBride fought in World War II. Now 88, he served as a paratrooper — "We learned how to climb down trees, not up them," he said — and earned a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts for his efforts. He parachuted into Normandy, France, on D-Day.

McBride, who lives in Silver City, was at the Cineport 10 in Las Cruces with more than 50 other veterans as part of the Honor Flight of Southern New Mexico's annual reunion. The former soldiers gathered at the Mesilla Valley Mall theater for lunch and to see an hour video documenting the most recent honor flight.

Honor Flight is a nonprofit with regional hubs that helps pay for Washington, D.C., trips for veterans to see war monuments in the nation's capital. Honor Flight of Southern New Mexico has arranged five such trips, with a sixth slated for next October.

"This is a thanksgiving," said David Melcher, chairman of the Honor Flight of Southern New Mexico, to the group as they prepared to watch the video.

Melcher noted that the most recent trip in which veterans of the Korean War had been invited. He said 19 of the 38 veterans who made the trip served in Korea. The remainder served in WWII — two actually fought in both conflicts.

Nick Beyer, of Deming, went on Honor Flight two years ago. The 91-year-old raved about his experience.

"It was too quick," he said, walking through the mall parking lot.

He was most impressed by the national WWII Memorial. He served in the war, from June 13, 1941 to July 13, 1945 — dates he said were easy to recall because they were both Friday the 13th.

Melvin Barlow, 84, retired to Las Cruces because of the weather. He served at the tail end of WWII, and while he wasn't in combat, he was in the South Pacific, and witnessed the testing of an atomic bomb.

"Fantastic," he said of his Honor Flight experience.

Barlow, who served in the Air Force (then Army Air Corps), is from Tennessee, but moved to South America shortly after his stint in the service. There he saw, first-hand, the devastation wrought by a dictator — and gained more appreciation for freedom.

In the video shown Thursday, Barlow recalled people where he lived were holding a vote. Those that voted were marked by ink on their thumbs that "they couldn't have filed off," he said. Then, the dictator, rounded those people up and killed them.

It moved Barlow to tears in the video, and has he watched from his theater seat.

Melcher said his organization focuses on the southern part of the state, though he has brought seven veterans from northern New Mexico aboard.